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Lucien Abenhaim is a scientific entrepreneur. He has created several academic research groups and Medtechs, including [RE]MEDs, specialised in the repurposing of medicines. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Abenhaim was born in 1951 in Casablanca (Morocco) to a Jewish family which moved to France and later to Canada. Abenhaim has a son, Félix LaHaye, a Los Angeles esports entrepreneur who made it to the INC and Forbes 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and 2017 respectively. [1]
Abenhaim was trained in medicine (MD from University of Paris in 1977 and MSc in Experimental medicine from McGill University in 1980), and information sciences (science doctorate from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in 1986).
Abenhaim started his career in academia. He created and led the back pain research group at the University of Montreal and McGill university (1984-1999). He also founded the Decisional Epidemiology Research Group with Drs. France Lert and William Dab (1986–89) established at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in France, as well as the North-South Network on the health consequences of the Agent Orange in Vietnam with Sylvaine Cordier (Agent Orange was a Monsanto herbicide contaminated by dioxin). This study showed that more than 20 years after its use, people living in the areas where the herbicide had been spread still had very elevated dioxin levels in their bodies. He founded in 1991 with Sam O. Freedman the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Community Studies at the Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital (a McGill University teaching hospital in Montreal) which he directed until 1999
Abenhaim founded several successful research companies focusing on innovative methodologies to assess drug effects in real life settings:
(i) The Centre for risk research inc. (CRRx), a Canadian company. With the cooperation of Drs. Lamiae Grimaldi and Michel Rossignol, Abenhaim developed the widely subscribed PGRxTM information system, which was used in landmark studies such as the International study on Insulin and Cancer[6] and for the surveillance of new vaccines. [2]
(ii) LA-SER, an international company active in over 20 countries, where he conducted so-called post-authorisation safety studies (PASS) or post-authorisation efficacy studies (PAES), the first Performance Agreement studies between pharma and payers. [3]
(iii) Analytica-Laser, a spin-off of LA-SER, focusing on real world evidence for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) of pharmaceuticals. [4]
(iv) In 2020, Abenhaim founded [RE]MEDs, a MedTech star-up which focuses on the use of big data, pharmacoepidemiology and Artificial Intelligence to identify unsuspected effects of drugs, including those useful for the repurposing of medications. [5]
Abenhaim was an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of Montreal from 1984 to 1987. He then became a Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University (1988-2005). There, he co-founded and directed the McGill University Pharmacoepidemiology Education program (1988-2005), the first graduate teaching programme in this new discipline to exist worldwide. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Bordeaux (1998-1999), and a Professor of Public Health at the University René Descartes in Paris (2004-2007). Since 2005 he is an Honorary Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (London). [6]
Abenhaim served as the General Director of Health (equivalent to Chief Medical Officer) of France (1999-2003), and as a member of the General Assembly and of the Executive Committee of the WHO (2001-2003).
Abenhaim blew the whistle internationally on fenfluramine, an appetite suppressant developed by the French Laboratory Servier and commercialised by American Home Products in the US under the name Redux. Fenfluramine was the main toxic component of the so-called ‘fen-phen’ combination. He led the renowned International Primary Pulmonary Hypertension Study (IPPHS), which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in 1996, and which showed that fenfluramine had a causal role in primary pulmonary hypertension, a fatal condition at the time. The study had been sponsored by Servier, who turned against it after its results were published. Abenhaim publicly opposed the USFDA’s decision to authorise the commercialisation of ‘Redux®’, which was eventually banned in 1997 after it was shown that it caused an additional heart problem. Over 20 billions dollars in compensation were paid by pharmaceutical companies to the victims of Redux and other fenfluramine derivatives. [7]
Abenhaim received the Radio-Canada Scientist of the Year award in 1997 for his work on appetite suppressants and the widespread communication of their risks to the public. [8]
In 2021 and 2023, Abenhaim testified in French courts against Servier Laboratories, which despite the 1997 international ban had continued to produce a fenfluramine derivative marketed until 2010 under the name ‘Mediator®’. Servier was ordered to pay over half a billion euros and one executive received a jail sentence. Jacques Servier was also prosecuted but passed away before the trial. [9]
Abenhaim has been involved in science communication. He was a journalist for medical newspapers (and an editor of medical reviews). He created the Scientific Information Service of the Quebec OH&S research institute (IRSST). And, he conceived and co-produced with Pierre H. Tremblay and Pixcom the 13-episode television series “The Great Fears of Year 2000,” broadcast on primetime television in Quebec (TVA) in 2000. The show presciently warned about the high likelihood of a viral pandemic, and the consequences of climate change on water supplies, among other threats. [10]
From 2010 to 2019, he sponsored and co-chaired a regular Symposium on the Access to Innovative Medicines organised at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. During the Covid-19 pandemic Abenhaim actively shared his expert opinion with public health decision makers and the media, and was one of the first to warn the public against the negative benefit-risk of the AstraZeneca vaccines in younger adults (while generally supporting the vaccination against the virus). [11]
Since 1997, Abenhaim sponsors an annual fellowship – now the Prix Louise-LaHaye in memory of his late wife – which is awarded by the Quebec Center for Drama Writers (CEAD) to an original play for a younger audience. [12]
The drug combination fenfluramine/phentermine, usually called fen-phen, was an anti-obesity treatment in the early 1990s that utilized two anorectics. Fenfluramine was marketed by American Home Products as Pondimin, but was shown to cause potentially fatal pulmonary hypertension and heart valve problems, which eventually led to its withdrawal in 1997 and legal damages of over $13 billion. Phentermine was not shown to have harmful effects.
An anorectic or anorexic is a drug which reduces appetite, resulting in lower food consumption, leading to weight loss. These substances work by affecting the central nervous system or certain neurotransmitters to create a feeling of fullness or reduce the desire to eat. The understanding of anorexiant effects is crucial in the development of interventions for weight management, eating disorders, and related health concerns. The anorexiant effect can be induced through diverse mechanisms, ranging from hormonal regulation to neural signaling. Ghrelin, leptin, and peptide YY are among the hormones involved in appetite control. Additionally, neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine in the central nervous system contribute significantly to the regulation of food intake.
Major Greenwood FRS was an English epidemiologist and statistician.
Jacques Genest was a Canadian physician and scientist. He founded the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) and was an emeritus professor at Université de Montréal and a professor at McGill University. Genest was best known for founding and leading several organizations related to clinical research in Québec and for his work on arterial hypertension.
Benfluorex, sold under the brand name Mediator, is an anorectic and hypolipidemic agent that is structurally related to fenfluramine. It may improve glycemic control and decrease insulin resistance in people with poorly controlled type-2 diabetes.
Pharmacoepidemiology is the study of the uses and effects of drugs in well-defined populations.
Peter George Smith CBE BSc DSc HonMFPHM FMedSci, is an eminent epidemiologist and Professor of Tropical Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
Miquel Porta is a Catalan physician, epidemiologist and scholar. He has promoted the integration of biological, clinical and environmental knowledge and methods in health research and teaching, which he has conducted internationally; notably, in Spain, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Harvard, Imperial College London, and several other universities in Europe, North America, Kuwait, and Brazil. Appointed by the International Epidemiological Association (IEA), in 2008 he succeeded the Canadian epidemiologist John M. Last as Editor of "A Dictionary of Epidemiology". In the Preface to this book he argues for an inclusive and integrative practice of the science of epidemiology. In September 2023, Porta made public through several social networks a call to suggest changes to the new, 7th. edition of the dictionary. The deadline for such contributions is 30 November 2023.
K. Srinath Reddy is an Indian physician and the Former President of the Public Health Foundation of India and formerly headed the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Irva Hertz-Picciotto, is an environmental epidemiologist best known for her studies of autism. She is Professor and Chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health in the Department of Public Health Sciences, at the University of California, Davis (UC-Davis). In addition, she is on the Research Faculty of the MIND Institute at UC-Davis; the Deputy Director of the UC-Davis Center for Children's Environmental Health; and on the faculty of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health of the Universities of California at Berkeley, Davis, and San Francisco. Hertz-Picciotto serves on the advisory board of the anti-toxic chemical NGO Healthy Child, Healthy World.
Franklin Marshall Matthews White is a Canadian public health scientist focused on capacity building for international and global education, research and development. He advocates:
"Public health...must not be left to the international community to define; it is...the responsibility of the countries themselves to define their priorities. The global agenda should be viewed as complementary at best."
"Health is mostly made in homes, communities and workplaces and only a minority of ill health can be repaired in clinics and hospitals."
"Nations (must) assess their public health human resource needs and develop their ability to deliver this capacity, and not depend on other countries to supply it."
“Public health and primary health care are the cornerstones of sustainable health systems, and this should be reflected in the health policies and professional education systems of all nations.”
Paul Kieran Whelton is an Irish-born American physician and scientist who has contributed to the fields of hypertension and kidney disease epidemiology. He also mentored several public health leaders including the deans of the schools of public health at Johns Hopkins and Columbia. He currently serves as the Show Chwan Health Care System Endowed Chair in Global Public Health and a Clinical Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He is the founding director of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research at Johns Hopkins University.
Professor John Owusu Gyapong is a Ghanaian Professor of Epidemiology. He was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho Ghana from 2016 to 2022.
Brian L. Strom is the inaugural Chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences and the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at Rutgers University. Strom was the Executive Vice Dean for Institutional Affairs, Founding Chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Founding Director of the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Founding Director of the Graduate Program in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to writing more than 650 papers and 15 books, he has been principal investigator for more than 275 grants. He was honored as one of the Best Doctors in America for each of his last eight years at Penn.
Amélie Quesnel-Vallée is a professor with joint appointment in the Departments of Sociology and of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, as well as Canada Research Chair in Policies and Health Inequalities at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Gilles Paradis is a consultant physician at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, and Strathcona Chair in Epidemiology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Joerg Hasford was a German physician, biometrician, and epidemiologist. He had been influential in the study of safety of drugs and pharmacoepidemiology. He was one of the first biostatisticians to look at reliably compiled drug dosing history data in light of pharmacometric consequences. He was the namesake of the Hasford Score, a prognostic score for chronic myeloid leukemia.
Karin B. Michels is an epidemiologist currently serving as the Chair of the Department of Epidemiology for the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Adrian R. Martineau FRSB is professor of respiratory infection and immunity at The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London. He is a specialist in the effects of vitamin D on health and the treatment of tuberculosis.
Maria Teresa Landi is an Italian epidemiologist and oncologist who researches genetic and environmental determinants of lung cancer and melanoma. At the National Cancer Institute, she is a senior investigator in the integrative tumor epidemiology branch and a senior advisor for genomic epidemiology. Landi is an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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